Opinion: Canada's UN vote encourages West Bank settlement enterprise

Thomas Woodley is president of the Montreal-based Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East.

MONTREAL — Last week, the United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly — 138 in favour, 9 against, 41 abstentions — to grant Palestine observer-state status. While the United Kingdom and Germany abstained, virtually all of the rest of Western Europe, including France, Sweden, Italy, Spain, Austria, Denmark and Ireland, voted in support of the resolution.

The word “state” in Palestine’s new status marked a momentous change. The resolution also stipulated the borders of the Palestinian state that the Assembly recognized: those in effect prior to the 1967 war. Thus, the UN members signalled clearly that the Palestinian territories — Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem — are not “disputed territory,” but rather a state militarily occupied by a foreign power, namely Israel. The 1967 borders give Israel 78 per cent of historic Palestine, and leave the Palestinians with only 22 per cent, less than half of what they were offered under the 1947 UN partition plan.

Both Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird have attacked the Palestinian bid as “unilateral.” This is an absurdity: the Palestinians were submitting themselves to the judgment of the most eminently multilateral body in the world, the UN General Assembly. Moreover, the Palestinians did so because of decades of repeated unilateral moves by Israel, foremost among them the establishment and expansions of its illegal “settlements” in the Palestinian territories.

International law states clearly that a military occupier is forbidden from transferring its civilian population to a territory that it occupies. Yet Israel has continuously colonized the West Bank and East Jerusalem for the past 45 years, with the Israeli colonist population now numbering more than 500,000.

Ever alert to opportunities to criticize the Harper government, Liberal leader Bob Rae urged it in a Dec. 3 newspaper commentary to “keep its cool.” However, given the content of Rae’s op-ed piece in the National Post, the Liberal point of view on the matter seems indistinguishable from that of the Conservatives.

Given Baird’s and Rae’s positions, it is shocking just how far today’s Conservatives and Liberals have drifted from their predecessors’ stances. Respect for international law, multilateral institutions and constructive engagement now count for little, and justice for still less.

Both Rae and the Conservatives pay lip service to the “two-state solution” but gloss over decades of Israeli misconduct undermining it. Long before suicide bombings (which started in 1993) and rocket fire from Gaza (which started in 2000) became convenient pretexts to excuse Israel’s much more lethal actions, Israel had embarked on its huge illegal land grab. In fact, Israel’s illegal colonization of the Palestinian territories started the very same year that Israel militarily occupied them — in 1967.

Rae, Harper and Baird refuse to recognize that the settlement enterprise makes negotiations almost irrelevant and an exercise in yet more humiliation for Palestinians. Yet even countries that abstained from last week’s vote on Palestine, including the U.K. and Australia, angrily called for Israel to account for its latest provocative “settlement” announcements.

Rae and Conservative leaders — and Israel — are united in two erroneous convictions: one, that the Palestinians are not entitled to ask UN members to judge the situation if doing so embarrasses Israel; and two, that it is incumbent on the Palestinians to return to the negotiating table without “preconditions” — i.e. without demanding and expecting Israel to stop expanding its illegal “settlements.”

Rae, Harper and Baird have been conveniently mute about, and have even defended, Israel’s asymmetrical use of violence and imprisonment. They emphasize Israelis’ right to security and recognition, but seldom the same right for Palestinians. By Israel’s own count, fewer than 40 Israelis have been killed by rocket fire in the last 12 years. Although all violent deaths are tragedies, that number pales in comparison to the thousands of Palestinian civilian deaths caused by Israel’s offensives, which sometimes result in the razing of entire neighbourhoods. Israel frequently jails Palestinian peace activists, children and even elected officials.

Deliberately or inadvertently, Canadian foreign policy is now encouraging Israel’s ongoing unlawful behaviour. In doing so, it is undermining the efforts of European and other leaders to convince Israel to stop its illegal colonization activities.

Canadians need leaders who will hold Israeli leaders to the same standard as they hold Palestinian leaders. Canada needs to insist on a fair settlement — one that will provide lasting peace to both peoples, end Israel’s 45-year-long occupation of Palestinian territory, and leave the Palestinians with a viable state.

If Canadian leaders do not do this, they will simply prolong Israel’s isolation and the Palestinians’ dispossession and impoverishment.

Thomas Woodley is president of the Montreal-based organization Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East.

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